I cant really fathom why that is "a badly implemented design and silly." It plays video through a cheap, easy, and affordable $10 cable from them. This is not a $60 Sony proprietary cable. No offense DFKT, Im thinking, for your sake, you should probably just sell your o2 and keep jammin with your d2 and clip. I know those keep you happy

I said that because almost every photo/video digicam, many other PMPs, and other devices have video-out over the headphone 3.5mm plug and don't need any special cable at all. A 4-pole 3.5mm plug is more or less the de-facto standard, and chances are many people already have that cable at home.

With Cowon it's especially cumbersome because not even their own players have one standard. The D2 for example uses a micro-USB cable, the O2 uses a mini-USB, the S9 uses 20-pin, etc. There's no consistency, they "invent" a new cable for each player, that's why it's badly implemented, in my opinion.

I could def agree that Cowon does need some more likeness between their players. But it is still a cheap $10 cable. If your spending $175-300 on an o2, probable $50-400 on headphones for it, a $10 cable is nothing in comparison. Just be thankful the cable isnt a $30 ipod cable or a $50+ Sony proprietary cable.

While I don't use or care about the video out since I don't own a TV, I certainly agree that standardizing cables is a good thing and failing to use standard cables for no known reason is not a good thing. Maybe they really did have some reason to do that but my guess is that it's just not something they pay attention to.

I wonder how the design process works. Do they hire a team and give them a loose set of goals and no strong guidelines? I would hope that's not how it's normally done but it often looks that way.

Look at the Archos line: new very expensive accessories for every model. I have a 504 with the DVR stand and I recently got a 705 and it takes a different DVR stand. They should have made it work with the old stand even if they did come out with new features in the new stand. It should be able to work with both.

Creative Labs made the ZVM and ZVW which were wildly successful and they threw away those designs and started over with the Zen. Why? Why not improve on their successful design? And what about the Muvos? Why not improve them as well? The world needs a higher capacity tiny player that uses an AAA battery. Go with what works? Not Creative!

Who does try to maintain compatibility? Apple and Sandisk, the number 1 and number 2 sellers. They're number 1 and number 2 because they're smart and this is just another example of smart.

Replace the hard drive in your computer and you simply pop out the old one and pop in the new one. Interfaces change to get faster (a good reason) but if you make sure it has the right interface it'll fit. The cable and the mounts will work. You don't even have to think about it.

Get a new monitor for your computer and just plug it in. It'll work just fine. No issues.

If it can be done with computers it can be one with MP3 players and PMPs. There's simply no good excuse not to.

Well, I wouldn't expect any better resolution than 480x272 - the native format of the LCD display on the device itself. On a 42", that may be okay for sitting a bit farther back from the TV.

If I want to watch something on my 27" LCD (16x9), I just move the file to my laptop and play it through the RGB jack on the TV, and use it as a second monitor to my laptop. My laptop has a built-in SD card reader, so it's even easier if my movie is on the 32GB SDHC.
Solved.

But it doesn't put out any higher resolution over the composite analog TV-out cable. It would need a DVI or HDMI output to transfer anything that comes close to 720p HD... well, it doesn't even do standard DVD resolution, 480i.

But, take a look:
Yellow=Video, White=Right audio, Red=Left audio.
The TV-Out jack is just that an analog TV signal. I still would not think that it is any better than a typical analog signal - 525 lines (US). It is a Video out RCA jack, tell me how that can be HiDef?

...PAL is used with a variety of 625-line standards (B,G,D,K,I) but also with the North American 525-line standard, accordingly named PAL-M. Likewise, SECAM is used with a variety of 625-line standards.